Did senator plagiarize?
Arizona state Sen. Juan Mendez appears to have plagiarized parts of his answers to a 2016 candidate questionnaire that appeared on azcentral.com. The accusations surfaced on a partisan research site.
An Arizona state senator appears to have plagiarized parts of his answers to a 2016 candidate questionnaire that appeared on azcentral.com.
The accusations against Sen. Juan Mendez, D-Tempe, surfaced Tuesday on the website Arizona Democrats Exposed, a partisan research site run by GOP operative Brian Anderson.
Using Google searches, Anderson said, he found “significant portions” of Mendez’s answers were lifted from other sources without attribution, including the Washington Post,President Barack Obama and the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
Mendez’s answers were included in
The Arizona Republic‘s online voters’ guide for the 2016 election, which featured questionnaires from dozens of candidates for state office.
The Republic independently compared several of Mendez’s responses from the questionnaire with other sources and also found passages with identical or similar wording.
Mendez did not respond to multiple messages left on his cellphone.
He did address the controversy on Twitter late Thursday night. While Mendez didn’t directly address his candidate questionnaire, he apologized for a lapse in judgment.
“Regarding an earlier story, I’d like everyone to know that as someone passionate about seeking innovative ideas to improve our state, I am constantly reading and researching solutions to complex issues - often as testimony happens during committees,” Mendez tweeted.
“Anything I’ve said truly represents my viewpoints. However, I will put forth a greater effort to put ideas I support into my own words. While I am often in a rush, that is no excuse to not properly cite my sources. I sincerely apologize for my lapse in due diligence & judgement.”
Identical or similar wording
Anderson’s blog post identifies nine responses to the candidate survey where, he alleges, Mendez took wording from another source.
In one example, Mendez’s response to a question about whether Arizona should legalize marijuana appears to contain passages from a Washington Post column.
Mendez’s answer read, in part: “The
‘war on drugs’ has never had any success in its campaign to end the popularity or use of cannabis. Nor, after decades of
common use, has cannabis been proved to be the evil weed of ‘Reefer Madness.’We would all be better off had we dedicated our resources to education and treatment rather than, through prohibition, to empowering criminals and cartels, not to mention ruining our youth’s lives, systematically creating second class citizens with results that put Jim Crow Laws to shame” (Words bolded for emphasis).
His response includes lines that match portions of a January 2014 column by Kathleen Parker, an opinion writer for The Post. Parker wrote: “The ‘war on drugs’
(beware government domestic wars) hasn’t made a dent in the popularity of pot. Nor, after decades of common use, has it been proved to be the evil weed of ‘Reefer Madness.’ How much better to have dedicated our resources to education and treatment rather than, through prohibition, to empowering criminals and cartels, not to mention ruining young lives with “criminal” records.”
Candidates who responded to The Republic‘s survey submitted their own answers through an online portal. The news organization didn’t edit their responses.
“We give individual access to the candidates or their campaigns, and they in turn populate the questionnaire and submit it,” said Abe Kwok, the paper’s assistant editor for opinions. “No one else has access.”
Kwok added, “On occasion, we help with a technical issue, such as uploading a photo, but we do not edit or otherwise alter answers. The information appears on the voter guide as the candidates or their campaign had filled out.”
In another example, Mendez’s response to a question about groundwater regulations appears to include passages from an Arizona Department of Water Resources strategic vision Web page.
Mendez wrote, in part: “No single strategy can address projected water supply imbalances across the state. While we should always recognize the uniqueness of the regions throughout Arizona and their varying challenges nobody anywhere should be able to develop without an assurance of at the least 100 years of water.”
From the Department of Water Resources’ strategic vision: “No single strategy can address projected water supply imbalances across the State. Instead a portfolio of strategies needs to be implemented dependent on the needs of each area of the State. It is very important to recognize the uniqueness of the various regions throughout the State and the varying challenges facing those regions.”
Mendez testimony also questioned
On Thursday, Anderson leveled a new accusation at Mendez, this time accusing him of plagiarizing comments he made during a legislative committee hearing in 2014.
Anderson said Mendez plagiarized language from two sources — an article on a conspiracy news website and a Wikipedia entry — when he testified about a bill regarding experimental drugs.
Mendez was a member of the Arizona House of Representatives at the time.
One portion of Mendez’s testimony (video starts at 48:40): “If this legislation is successful, if we provide almost unfettered legal access to experimental drugs by terminally ill patients, we will be radically altering the conduct of clinical cancer research as patients would then have little incentive to enter Phase Two and Phase Three clinical trials, which are our only means to determine side effects and efficiency of new drugs.”
An excerpt from the Wikipedia page (which is about a relevant court case): “If the Abigail Alliance had been successful in court, the suit would have radically altered the conduct of clinical cancer research, by providing almost unfettered legal access to experimental drugs by terminally ill patients, who would then have little incentive to enter Phase II and Phase III clinical trials, which are
used to determine side effects and efficacy of new drugs.“
Partisan website raised accusations
Anderson told The Republic that his post about Mendez wasn’t paid for by any campaign or political group. Rather, he said, he researched the issue in his “free time.”
“I think it should worry people that he campaigned on using other people’s words,” Anderson told The Republic. “I honestly hope that he would explain why he did this.”
Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs, who leads the chamber’s Democratic caucus, declined to comment on the accusations against Mendez. The state Democratic Party also declined to comment.
Anderson, who recently launched the website Arizona Democrats Exposed, previously worked in Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s administration, where he was a communications aide.
Soon after leaving Ducey’s office, Anderson started the Saguaro Group, an opposition-research firm that’s working on 2018 elections.
Anderson likens his website and another attacking state Sen. Steve Farley (a Democrat who’s running for governor), to local versions of partisan national websites, such as the Washington Free Beacon or the Washington Examiner.
Critics say Anderson has created “fake news” websites to smear Democrats. Similar political opposition “news” websites have popped up in other parts of the country.